


Hotter Than A Fantasy

by ShowMeAHero



Series: The Smithsonian [12]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers Family, Burns, Domestic Avengers, Fire, Fluff, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Scars, but not even really, nobody touch steve ever i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 16:03:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3816463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scars are cool, anyways. Also, Bucky needs to find his chill. He's at, like, an eleven, and he needs to be at a two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hotter Than A Fantasy

**Author's Note:**

> I'm, like. I'm sorry? There wasn't even a prompt for this? I just wanted Bucky to see Steve get hurt and fucking rip shit as a result. Here I am.
> 
> Title taken from "Girl on Fire" by Alicia Keys.

It was a fairly routine battle, actually. It was going remarkably well, all things considered; the Doombots were largely under control, Peter was doing swimmingly as far as being integrated as a team member went, and Clint hadn’t even run out of arrows yet. They had everything about under control when the proverbial shit hit the proverbial fan.

Steve got careless. You know, it happens; even Captain America gets careless every now and then, the man’s not perfect. The Doombots were routine by now, and he was deactivating a couple of them while Tony looked for the pieces of one of his gauntlets that got blown off nearby. Neither of them was paying much attention when a Doombot blasted an electric discharge into Steve’s chest. Steve looked at his own chest in surprise before stumbling backwards, then falling to his knees. He batted the robot away, but it shot a jolt of force lightning at him, and Steve went down.

Tony was there in a second, the hand that still had a gauntlet attached to it reaching for the Doombot as his faceplate slid into place, and the stupid robot seemed to sense his intentions because it self-destructed right then and there, throwing Tony backward and blasting Steve right in the face, and he got knocked back, unconscious.

“Oh, shit,” Clint said quietly as Bucky’s head snapped to Steve, like he knew on instinct that Steve was down. His head then snapped around (so fast that it was honestly a shock that he didn’t get whiplash) to look directly at Dr. Doom where he was perched on a rooftop. Dr. Doom’s hand fell down slowly as they made eye contact before he turned to try and get the hell out of Dodge.

Bucky backed up a couple of steps, then took off at a run. He shouted for the Hulk, who was there in a second, catching Bucky’s ankles when he jumped and launching him at the rooftop. Bucky grabbed Dr. Doom by the front of his stupid cape and just started whaling on him, just really going fucking nuts. The rest of the Doombots all just fell to the ground, like they totally gave up on everything. Tony was already over Steve, recovered from his backwards plunge, nudging at his chest before pressing his ear above his heart.

Meanwhile, Bucky was still ripping Dr. Doom apart, pieces of the scientist’s armor laying around them like debris. Thor landed beside them and carefully laid a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, and Bucky threw him off, slamming Dr. Doom’s head into the floor of the rooftop. He had Dr. Doom by the throat in a second, metal fingers tightening, and Thor grabbed his shoulder again. Bucky stopped, chest heaving, metal hand covered in bits. He stumbled backwards, rising to his feet, leaving Dr. Doom laying there, coughing, while Thor brought them back down to street level. Bucky staggered to Steve’s side, knocking Tony out of the way like he didn’t even see him. He wrapped his fingers around Steve’s wrist, feeling for his pulse. Half of Steve’s face was burnt, already starting to heal as best as it could. He smelled like burnt hair and iron.

“Is he okay?” Bucky asked, after a long moment. He looked up at Tony. A Doombot popped over, and Bucky punched his fist right through it without looking up at it.

Sam landed next to Bucky, his wings snapping into place against his back. He took a couple of steps to get his balance on track before he fell down to Steve’s side. He pushed Bucky’s hands away from Steve and started to check his vitals in a very calm, systematic way, even though his hands were shaking, just a little bit.

“He’s going to be fine,” Sam announced, and Bucky’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “Don’t move his head, though, just in-”

“What the fuck?” Steve groaned, obviously starting to move his head. Bucky grabbed the sides of his head and held him in place.

“Knock it off, asshole,” Bucky instructed, and Steve opened the eyelid that wasn’t fried shut.

“What the _fuck?”_ Steve reiterated. His eye wandered to Bucky’s bloody metal arm. “Buck-”

“Yup,” Bucky interrupted. “Just had to go grab a fucking robot, didn’t you? I don’t think they’re like the robots Howard promised, bud. I think they’re mostly just asshole-ish, just like you, why don’t you _pay fucking attention-”_

“It’s fine,” Steve promised. He lifted a hand and gingerly touched the side of his face. “Think it’ll leave a mark?”

“Teach you a lesson if it did, wouldn’t it?” Bucky snapped. Steve frowned, and Bucky sighed. “You’re fine.”

“It might,” Bruce commented, now normal-sized and significantly less green, as he crouched next to Steve’s head and examined the burn marks. “I’m not sure, but we might be looking at a scar here. He’s still got those bullet scars.”

Bucky grit his teeth and let go of Steve’s head. Steve’s hand snapped out automatically, his partially-burnt gloved fingers wrapping around Bucky’s metal wrist.

“You into it?” Steve asked. Bucky rubbed the thumb of his flesh hand over the hinge of Steve’s jaw on the unburnt side of his face.

“If it’s on you, I’m into it,” Bucky assured him. Tony pretended to fall backwards swooning, and Clint kicked his shin, which really hurt Clint more than anything else. Natasha smiled.

“What happened?” Peter asked, swinging into view and landing gracefully near Steve’s feet. “Oh, fuck- Oh, I just said ‘fuck’ in front of Captain America- oh, _no,_ I fucking said it _twice-”_

“Shut up, kid,” Bucky growled.

“Shut the fuck up, Bucky,” Steve said, grinning, and Bucky rolled his eyes. Peter looked like he was going to explode.

“I’d whack you if you didn’t look like one of Stark’s dinners,” Bucky told Steve seriously. Tony looked indignant.

_“Hey-”_

“Beef brisket should not look like that, and we all know it,” Steve interjected. Tony waved a hand dismissively at him. “Stick to the Buche de Noel.”

“That’s only for Christmas,” Tony reminded him. Steve rolled his eyes in a motion shockingly close to the one Bucky just did.

“Accept the compliment and make the damn dessert, Stark.” Steve reached up to touch his burnt neck, and Bucky swatted his hand away. “What the hell actually happened, though?”

“A fucking Doombot pulled out all the stops on you, lightning and everything,” Bucky explained flatly, tapping the spot on Steve’s chest where the uniform had been melted away by the force lightning and the electric discharge.

“I tried to stop it and it self-destructed on us,” Tony offered, wiggling the fingers of the hand Bruce was carefully trying to wrap in shreds of his shirt. Bruce slapped the back of Tony’s head, the helmet abandoned at their feet. Tony scowled at him.

“Then Bucky just fucking wrecked Doom,” Clint added, pointing up at the rooftop where Johnny Storm and Reed Richards were hefting Doom up to take into their jet and, hopefully, remove to a secure facility where he would be unable to continuously fail to conquer New York, and then, the world. “It was actually kind of terrifying.”

Steve looked at Bucky, who just stared back. They just stared each other for a horrible amount of time, maybe reading each other’s minds or something, having some sort of weird silent conversation, until Steve sighed.

“I’m sure I’ll dig the scars,” Bucky promised. Steve laughed, then groaned.

“I hate robots,” he commented, his hand hovering near the burns on his face.

“I’ll try not to take that personally,” JARVIS dryly commented into all of their ears. Steve laughed again.

* * *

Turned out, Steve did have some scars, a light webbing that was barely noticeable, even from close up. Peter thought it made him look badass. Bucky stared at it for a long time before sticking his tongue down Steve’s throat. Turned out he did kind of dig the scars. Not the bullet ones, though.

Pepper offered to help him out, wiggling Extremis-red fingers at him. Steve declined when he saw the look on Bucky’s face. Besides, Peter was right. He did look kind of badass, in the right light.

 

**Author's Note:**

> featuring extensive use of the word "fuck"
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter at [@nicoIodeon](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


End file.
